Photography

Black Dresses

The work is part performance art, part textile culture, part feminist statement, part installation art, and part photography. These images are haunting because of the presence reinforced by the absence of the wearers of these dresses. This other worldly feeling becomes stranger and more keenly understood as the locations and displays change. There is the strength of a sisterhood of the group brought together. The gentleness and grace of the female spirit inhabits the spaces where these dresses slowly dance as memories of past gatherings, and feminine rituals. They are soft, flowing, and vulnerable as black orchids, and of course, as silent as the grave. The silence in these pictures is deafening, while everything in them and around them seems to be holding its breath. These photographs are suggestive and poignant, leaving one with the feeling that, as viewers, you are walking among victims and goddesses, all at the same time.

I have constructed more than 100 dresses in the last fifteen years to photograph in the landscape. The 30 Black dresses are the most recent. I cut, sewed, and ironed each one. They are reminiscent of late 19th century women’s attire, but their blackness somehow neutralizes them, or even transforms them into negative space. I place the “empty” dresses in a variety of natural settings including the Midwest, Texas and New Mexico.

Mission of Mercy

A beautiful spring in Lubbock, TX.

Blown

This photograph was taken in Galveston, TX.

tangled

Taken at the Prairie Chicken Refuge near Houston, TX.

On the Edge

Taken in Lubbock, TX.

After Turner

Taken at Brazos Bend State Park south of Houston, TX.

Discarded

Taken at Bottomless Lake, NM.

Boom!

Taken on a ranch near Lubbock, TX on a convenient irrigation boom.

Journey

Nestled

In Lubbock, TX every time it rained a nearby park flooded. The water was gone 3 hours later.

Bayou Breath

I love Spanish moss growing in trees in southern Texas.

Long Day's Journey

Taken near Johnson City, VT while attending a residency at Vermont Studio Center.

After Kiefer

This pine wood reminded me of Anselm Kiefer's early work.

Through the Birches

Taken near Johnson City, VT while attending a residency at Vermont Studio Center. I love exhibited in juxtaposition to After Kiefer.

Aloft

Taken at Bottomless Lake, NM

Escape

Taken at White Sands, NM. This dress seemed like it was trying to get away.

Path to Redemption

This photograph was taken in southern Illinois at a friend's pond.

The Way

Taken at White Sands, NM.

White Dresses

The work is part performance art, part textile culture, part feminist statement, part installation art, and part photography. These images are haunting because of the presence reinforced by the absence of the wearers of these dresses. This other worldly feeling becomes stranger and more keenly understood as the locations and displays change. There is the strength of a sisterhood of the group brought together. The gentleness and grace of the female spirit inhabits the spaces where these dresses slowly dance as memories of past gatherings, and feminine rituals. They are soft, flowing, and vulnerable as black orchids, and of course, as silent as the grave. The silence in these pictures is deafening, while everything in them and around them seems to be holding its breath. These photographs are suggestive and poignant, leaving one with the feeling that, as viewers, you are walking among victims and goddesses, all at the same time.

I have constructed more than 100 dresses in the last fifteen years to photograph in the landscape. The 30 Black dresses are the most recent. I cut, sewed, and ironed each one. They are reminiscent of late 19th century women’s attire, but their blackness somehow neutralizes them, or even transforms them into negative space. I place the “empty” dresses in a variety of natural settings including the Midwest, Texas and New Mexico.

Blown Up

I love the way this one almost takes on a flower form.

In Between

Driving by this pond, I had to return home for the dresses.

Accension

Beautiful southern Illinois in spring.

Above and Benneth

I love the layers here. The detail on the larger sizes is amazing.

Into the Woods

Sometimes one or two dresses can be as powerful as 30.

Around and Through

Friends burned their prairie grass and then invited me over to photograph.

Along the Edge

Sunset in southern Illinois.

Sunset

Beautiful sunset in southern Illinois.

Strung Up

Dry Bed

Taken at Giant City State Park in southern Illinois.

Black & White Dress

I have been photographing empty dresses in natural settings. I began with 30 white dresses in the lush green environment of the Shawnee National Forest and more recently I continued the project with 30 black dresses in the harsh landscape of western Texas and eastern New Mexico. In 2000, I began constructing the first dresses spontaneously after receiving 100 yards of muslin from my sister during a remodeling project. I found the repetition of cutting, sewing, and gathering 30 skirts and bodices meditative, almost transformative. I don’t know why I stopped at 30 dresses. I trust my instincts. A community of dresses was formed and I knew I needed to bring them into nature: floating in ponds, hanging in trees, lying on the ground. Photography was a way to document my installations. Eventually, I buried one in my backyard (September 8, 2001) and dug it up 30 days later documenting the passing of time with a journal. Two years ago when my husband and I moved to West Texas, I began making 30 black dresses and one single black and white dress. The process of creating the dresses helped me to grieve for my loss of home and friends in southern Illinois.

In this body of work, dragged and dropped, I am using a single dress I made from a bold graphic black and white print. Within this pattern there is both chaos and order, which mirrored my feelings while I settled into my new home in Lubbock. After photographing the community of 30 dresses, it felt right to work with a single dress. This dress has traveled with me and been photographed from New York City (my favorite city) to Carbondale, IL (my former home of 18 years) to Lubbock, TX (my new home). This body of work is from 2009. I have since happily moved to Austin, TX.

picked

I love the touch of red from the season's last tomatoes.

dragged

I found this old tractor on a ranch in Lubbock, TX.

draped

Brooklyn Botanical Center in the Japanese Garden.

dropped

Taken in New York's Central Park.

pushed

More from Central Park, NYC.

climbed

Central Park in October.

Occupy

I've made over 100 miniature dresses and temporarily install them at government sites, war memorials, and at other structures I find interesting. I lovingly refer to them as my little army.

Tablecloth Dresses

I am in the process of photographing girls, ages 6-12, in natural settings wearing dresses that I constructed out of vintage tablecloths. The results have been magical, lyrical, and haunting. The dresses seem to take away the individual identities of the children and create a new group dynamic—a group identity. Photographing the girls in nature adds interesting layers of meaning to the images, including references to mythology, surrealism, and fairy tales. I think of the Three Graces, nymphs, dryads, and female heroes with their relationship to the gardens of the Gods. The twilight sky adds hidden drama and a surreal quality to many of the photographs. The landscape contributes to the ghostly images these girls project, as if they cannot exist in a fully realized place. Sometimes the quality of the light emphasizes elements of the girls’ lives that are fragile and doll-like in nature. Sitting on the ground with their skirts spread out around them in lovely folds, the girls seem almost flower-like, and that they themselves are growing out of the ground. I love the energy of the girls twirling combined with spiritual energy. It seems to give the girls a power they don’t have otherwise. Yet, there is also vulnerability and a delicacy with the body of work.

I try to create an atmosphere of playfulness during the photo sessions and document their time in the dresses in the most unobtrusive method possible. I let the images create a narrative rather than trying to impose one.

Discovery

At the Top

Pioneer

Unwelcome Visitor

Fallen

Sisters

Beneath the Willow

The Offering

Gathering

Table Set

Waiting

All in a Row

Twirling

I found as soon as I started photographing girls in these full-circle skirt dresses that they needed to twirl. I love the joy their faces express as they move.

In honor of the girls love of twirling and the joy I saw I made a series of fiber pieces.

Elizabeth in Motion

In honor of the girls love of twirling and the joy I saw I made a series of fiber pieces.

Bella in Motion

In honor of the girls love of twirling and the joy I saw I made a series of fiber pieces.

Brianne in Motion

In honor of the girls love of twirling and the joy I saw I made a series of fiber pieces.

Modern Conveniences

This body of work explores how children are exploited in our culture. I’m interested in the development of modern appliances and their design, how marketers appealed to women, and how their development and advertising reinforced women’s subjectivity. I believe the myth of the housewife’s role, illustrated in modern media in the guise of June Cleaver, Donna Reed, and Margaret Anderson, led many working class women to resent their role as wife and mother, causing some of them to think of their children as products or adornments first and human beings second.

Painted Collage

I started making and photographing girls’ dresses in 2000. Since the beginning of the 30 Dresses body of work, I have also worked on collage and assemblage pieces. The collage work began in late 2001 using objects and 30 Dresses photographs first in cigar boxes and later on game boards. Inspired after seeing the Matisse/Picasso Exhibition at MoMA in 2003, I began painting the collages. I’ve had a series of solo exhibitions featuring my collage and assemblage work beginning with both in and out of the game, 2002, followed by In Play, 2003, then In Hot Water, 2004, Rosebud, 2006 and Modern Conveniences, 2010. I’ve tried to show examples of all the work, which explores cultural identity focusing on girls and women, in this exhibition. I’m particularly interested in the influence of modernity with the development of modern appliances and advertising.